Email Author Roy Kasten

2008 Stories by Roy Kasten

• Big Mike Aguirre

  published December 31, 2008

  When you hear Big Mike Aguirre play guitar, you know where he's coming from: the East Side, where the blues isn't for tourists, it's for... More >>

• The Dive Poets

  published December 24, 2008

  Cut the Dive Poets some slack: The quartet, which has been playing around St. Louis for only a year, is still finding its voice. (Right... More >>

• Bottle Rockets

  published December 24, 2008

  Before the Drive-By Truckers and the North Mississippi Allstars, there was the Bottle Rockets, a new Southern-rock band before there was... More >>

• We made you a mixtape! 2008: The year in music.

  published December 17, 2008

  2008 was a weird year for music. Gloom and doom predictions about sinking album sales overshadowed the industry, and labels seemed to... More >>

• Ear Burns: Our critics spew some haterade about 2008's bummer songs, albums and events

  published December 17, 2008

  The end of the year is a time for critics to reflect on the best music they heard in the past twelve months. But such positivity neglects the... More >>

• Geoff Koch

  published December 17, 2008

  St. Louis singer and songwriter Geoff Koch has collected an impressive local following (he won a People's Choice Award for his genre in... More >>

• Marc Broussard

  published December 17, 2008

  In 2002 Marc Broussard gave up on the Christian-rock circuit for a solo career that sizzles like a bayou barbecue, where sinners jam and... More >>

• Show Review: Vetiver at Off Broadway, Monday, December 15, 2008

  published Dec 16, 2008

  "This is a stark contrast to playing before the Black Crowes," Andy Cabic, principle Vetiver said from the dimly lit Off Broadway stage. "I keep expecting you to throw things." The night was incident ... More >>

• Vetiver

  published December 10, 2008

  As freak folks go, the San Francisco collective Vetiver isn't especially freaky or really all that folky. Still, this year's collection... More >>

• Eli Jones

  published December 10, 2008

  Recent (if underdeveloped) trends indicate a realignment of the jam band fraternal order, a shift from Grateful Dead necrophilia and Dave... More >>

• Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

  published December 3, 2008

  In soul music — neo, revived, old-school or otherwise — the wrecking crew is the Dap-Kings and the wrecking ball is... More >>

• Carrie Underwood

  published December 3, 2008

  Forget Nostradamus: Simon Cowell saw the future in Carrie Underwood and that future is now, courtesy of the country star machine that... More >>

• Death Becomes Hymn: NYC twang-punks O'Death explore the darker side of Americana

  published November 26, 2008

  Everyone knows the scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou?: A hooded Klansman stands between two torches and chants as the armies of the... More >>

• Future Perfect: Pianist Terry Adams moves beyond NRBQ with a new band and forays into jazz

  published November 26, 2008

  Terry Adams isn't in the mood to talk about the past. "I didn't know you wanted to go that far back," he says on the phone from western... More >>

• Dar Williams

  published November 19, 2008

  Once upon a time, the folkie rabble would have tossed Dar Williams to the lions for offenses against purity of heart and purse, not to... More >>

• Sonny Landreth

  published November 19, 2008

  Sonny Landreth is a mind-boggling guitar player. While steeped in the blues — he attacks a resonator guitar with punishing... More >>

• Carrie Rodriguez

  published November 12, 2008

  The daughter of one of Austin's greatest and most elusive songwriters (David Rodriguez), a long-time partner to Americana hero Chip Taylor and... More >>

• Glenn Branca

  published November 12, 2008

  Experimental doesn't begin to describe Glenn Branca. As one of the most ambitious, esoteric guitarists affiliated with the late '70s No... More >>

• Calexico/The Acorn

  published November 5, 2008

  For a band that started out combining mazurkas, musique concrete and mariachi, Calexico has come to cast a long, lingering... More >>

• B-Sides gets to the heart of Rachael Yamagata's muse, while alt-country troubadour Hayes Carll brings his old-fashioned Texas twang to the Duck Room

  published November 5, 2008

  Hayes Carll's first major-label release, Trouble in Mind, came out via Lost Highway in April to rave reviews. Carll hadn't made a record... More >>

• Brighton MA

  published October 29, 2008

  Singer and songwriter Matt Kerstein was born in Brighton, MA — hence the name for his latest project, formed after the Chicagoan... More >>

• Magnolia Electric Co.

  published October 29, 2008

  Jason Molina is one of rock's most obsessive mythologists. Stars and moons, wolves and lambs, ghosts and demons, night and more night —... More >>

• Ugly Stick

  published October 29, 2008

  Getting past the masochistic name Ugly Stick is no small task. But on the other side of first impressions are four veteran cow-punks who... More >>

• Wax Fang

  published October 22, 2008

  Louisville, Kentucky's Wax Fang takes an alchemical approach to indie shout rock, melting extended mathy guitar riffage into strangely... More >>

• Diplomats of Solid Sound

  published October 22, 2008

  When it comes to the soul revival of the last decade, critical caveats about "purism" and "studiousness" are as useful as chopsticks at a... More >>